Items tagged with Defense-Distributed

Last year, we caught wind of a one-man operation called Defense Distributed run by Texas law student Cody Wilson that was developing a 3D-printable handgun. At the time he was thwarted from prototyping the weapon as the company that leased him the necessary 3D printer, Stratasys, promptly reclaimed the printer. Even so, plans for 3D-printable gun parts such as ammunition magazines and receivers were proliferating online; 3D printer manufacturer Makerbot noticed this trend and purged all gun-related blueprints from its Thingiverse database. The Liberator - Image credit: Forbes In response to Makerbot’s...Read more...

As guns and their associated violence dominate the current headlines in the wake of the unimaginable tragedy in Connecticut, the focus on and debate over the ability to print gun parts using 3D printing technology has intensified. Though not explicitly motivated by current events, 3D printing company MakerBot has deleted schematics for gun parts from its Thingiverse website. According to Forbes, weapons and weapon component designs had never been allowed on the site, but lax policing allowed them to remain posted, until the last days that is. Lower receiver of an AR-15 (Image from Thingiverse via...Read more...

3D Printing is without a doubt one of the most intriguing emerging technologies--just check out our coverage of the recent Maker Faire in New York--and it was only a matter of time before the (well, any) new technology clashed with current laws and ideals. Second-year law student Cody Wilson runs a site called Defense Distributed whose purpose is to develop designs for 3D-printable guns called “Wiki Weapons”--which are pistols that would be fully 3D-printable, unlike the partially printed AR-15 pictured above. After apparently raising the $20,000 his group needed for the project, Wilson...Read more...